Free quotes · Safety-first surfacing
Lubbock Artificial Turf installs playground and play-area turf for back yards, daycares, churches, and schools, a surfacing system where the safety layer you can't see matters more than the grass you can. Under the turf sits a foam shock pad engineered to absorb impact; on top sits a softer, taller fiber that stays cleaner than mulch and cooler than rubber.
The alternatives all trade something away. Wood mulch scatters, compacts hard, and hides what falls into it. Poured rubber bakes in the sun and cracks with age. Grass under a swing set wears to bare dirt by June. A padded turf system holds its cushion, its color, and its drainage in the same place kids actually land.
The cushion comes from a purpose-made foam pad under the turf, not from the infill. Pads are manufactured and rated for impact attenuation on play surfaces, and thicker pads are specified where equipment is taller, the fall height of the equipment drives the pad choice.
Play areas get a softer polyethylene fiber at a taller pile than a lawn, chosen for bare knees and hands rather than curb appeal. No abrasive nylon, no stiff blades.
The pad and turf both pass water, and the base underneath is graded to carry it away, so the landing zone under the swings isn't a puddle the morning after a storm.
Nothing to scatter, nothing to swallow, no annual mulch top-off, and a surface that runs cooler underfoot than dark rubber surfacing. A hose and a leaf blower cover the maintenance.
Play surfacing splits into four builds, from a single landing zone to a full campus playground. The pad spec follows the equipment, not the address.
The home version is the zone under and around a swing set or trampoline, the patch that's already worn to dirt and turns to mud when it rains. Padded turf turns it back into a surface kids can fall on.
Full-yard family builds often combine play turf in the equipment zone with standard landscape turf everywhere else, on one continuous base. One yard, two specs, no visible line.
Daycares and preschools carry the same need at scale plus a compliance question: surfacing under equipment is expected to cushion falls, and a padded turf system is one of the recognized ways to do that.
Churches and schools bring the biggest footprints and the most traffic. Commercial play projects get quoted from plans or a site walk, with the pad spec matched to the tallest equipment on the plan.
The safety layer changes the middle of the build; the bones are the same five steps.
We measure the area and note the equipment above it, heights and layout drive the pad spec and how far the padded zone should extend.
Sod and soil out, crushed base in, compacted and graded to drain away from the play zone.
Foam pads are laid and fitted across the padded zone, tight-joined so there are no hard lines under the turf.
The play fiber goes down over the pad, seamed and edge-fastened like every install, a lifted edge on a playground is a trip hazard, so the perimeter gets close spacing.
A light infill stands the fibers up, everything gets broomed and blown clean, and we walk the surface before handing it over.
Playground turf isn't a separate row on our homepage cost table, so here's the honest framing: it starts from the residential turf range on that table, roughly $8 to $14 per square foot nationally, and the shock pad adds a real line item on top, scaling with pad thickness and coverage area. The padded zone under equipment costs more per foot than the play lawn around it.
Because pad spec depends on your actual equipment, this is a job where the free on-site measure earns its keep. You get the pad recommendation and the price in writing together.
Wondering what your yard would cost?
Call for a free measure and a written price. If the number doesn't work, there's no next step.
(806) 630-0409Shock pads are manufactured and rated for impact attenuation at specific fall heights, and the right spec depends on your equipment, a taller playset calls for more cushion than a low toddler set. We match the pad rating to the equipment at the measure rather than quoting a one-size answer.
The surface is a soft fiber over foam with a light, broomed-in infill, nothing loose to swallow in the way mulch or pea gravel offers, and no splinters. Like any outdoor surface, it warms in direct summer sun, so shade or a morning rinse matters for crawlers.
Rubber mulch scatters out of the fall zone, tracks into the house, gets hot, and needs topping up. A padded turf system keeps its cushion exactly where it was installed, drains through, and cleans with a blower. The cushion also can't be kicked away from the landing spot.
Yes, a padded play zone and a standard landscape lawn install as one continuous surface on one base. The pad simply stops where the play zone ends, and the fiber can change or continue depending on the look you want.
Safety guidance recognizes several impact-absorbing surfaces, engineered wood fiber, poured rubber, rubber mulch, and padded turf systems among them. What sets padded turf apart is that the cushion is fixed in place under the surface: it can't be kicked or scattered away from the landing zone the way loose fill can, and its rating comes from a manufactured pad rather than a fill depth someone has to keep maintained.
Tell us about the space and the equipment on it. A local turf pro calls back with a pad recommendation and a written price, free.
